Method of providing an improved call forwarding service

Abstract

The invention concerns a method of providing an improved call forwarding service in a telecommunications network, and a network unit and a computer program product to execute this method. A call initiated by a caller (10) to a first callee (21) is consecutively forwarded, starting from the first callee (21), to one or more further interlinked callees (22, 23), thereby forming a call forwarding chain (401, 402). A set of data is added to the call, the data comprising an identifier of each of the callees (21, 22, 23) involved in the call forwarding chain (401, 402) and an address associated with a respective message memory (210, 220, 230) assigned to each of the callees (21, 22, 23) involved in the call forwarding chain (401, 402). When the call is forwarded to the message memory (230) assigned to a last callee (23) of the call forwarding chain (401, 402), the caller (10) is prompted to provide a message to be stored in one or more of the message memories (210, 220, 230). From the set of data one or more of the addresses associated with the message memories (210, 220, 230) are retrieved. And the message received from the caller (10) is delivered to one or more of the message memories (210, 220, 230) by routing the message to the retrieved one or more addresses.

Description

[0001]The invention is based on a priority application EP 07 291 086.2 which is hereby incorporated by reference.TECHNICAL FIELD[0002]The present invention relates to a method of providing an improved call forwarding service in a telecommunications network, and a network unit and a computer program product to execute said method.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]In current telecommunications systems, a subscriber who has activated an automatic call forwarding to his voice mailbox is the only one who may access a voice message left by a caller in the mailbox. If a caller is forwarded by a call forwarding service activated by a callee to a third party callee, and forwarded again by a call forwarding service activated by the third party callee to a forth party callee, thus forming a call forwarding chain, the caller may leave a message only in the mailbox of the forth party callee. Thus, the precedent callees of the call forwarding chain, especially the first callee where the call actua...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010]As the first callee is the person who was originally destined to receive the call, the present invention helps to re-establish the intended path of call information distribution even in case of a call forwarding chain.

[0015]This embodiment of the invention allows a first callee to access information intended for him without wasting time, even when using a call forwarding service. Let us suppose that the first callee forwards his calls to his colleague because the first callee is in a meeting for some time. The colleague however unexpectedly had to leave the office ahead of schedule. So calls arriving at the colleague's terminal are call forwarded to the colleague's mailbox. Since the colleague will not return to the office before the next morning, the first callee would not find out about the left message before the next day. The present embodiment of the invention allows a first callee to define that a call be re-routed to his own mailbox if the call would be forwarded to a mailbox at the end of a call forwarding chain. So the first callee can access his mailbox when he returns from the meeting.

[0016]According to another preferred embodiment of the invention, a selection procedure for selection of one or more of the one or more callees is executed by then improved call forwarding service, whereby a select list presented in the selection procedure comprises the identifiers of each of the callees involved in the call forwarding chain. This selection procedure may be performed by a call forwarding server associated with the last callee in the call forwarding chain. The caller selects a selection of one or more callees of the one or more callees involved in the call forwarding chain. The caller's selection is transmitted to a control unit controlling the improved call forwarding service. Based on the received selection, the addresses associated with the message memories assigned to the selected one or more callees are retrieved from the data set. By utilizing the retrieved addresses as destination addresses, it is possible to distribute the message received from the caller to the one or more message memories assigned to the selected one or more callees.

[0018]In a preferred embodiment, a notification is delivered to the one or more of the message memories where the message has not been delivered to. It is possible that this notification indicates that a message has been delivered. It is also possible that the notification indicates further information associated with the course of the call forwarding of the call, e.g., the callees involved in the call forwarding chain, the message memories where the caller's message has been delivered, etc. This allows a timely distribution of call information to all callees involved in the call forwarding chain, partly by leaving the caller's message in message memories and partly by leaving a notification about the caller's message in message memories.

Problems solved by technology

Thus, the precedent callees of the call forwarding chain, especially the first callee where the call actually was destined to, will not be able to access the message left by the caller and retrieve the information contained.

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